BRADLEY WIGGINS faces intense competition if he is to succeed in his bid to become Britain's most prolific Olympian, the head of British Cycling has warned.

Wiggins, 33, is targeting the Rio 2016 Games - which would be his fifth Olympics - and a fifth gold medal which would make it eight in total.

Five golds would also equal the figure achieved by fellow sporting knights Sir Chris Hoy and Sir Steve Redgrave, but British Cycling's chief executive Ian Drake said 2012 Tour de France winner Wiggins will have to earn his place in the team pursuit on merit rather than because of his past achievements.

Drake, speaking at the launch of British Cycling's four-year strategy, pointed out that Jason Kenny was picked over Hoy to compete in the sprint in London 2012, despite the Scot being defending champion and having an awesome reputation.

He told Press Association Sport: ""The fact you have Bradley saying he wants to come back and do that is great news for the sport but competition is really high which is a great place for us to be. The strength in depth of athletes that we have got now is phenomenal.

"Everyone who pulls on the Great Britain jersey now knows they are in a fight for those places.

"People have to earn that jersey. You only have to look at what happened in terms of selections for London 2012 with Jason Kenny and Chris Hoy.

"It was on 'who is best placed to win these medals'. Those decisions are made purely on performance basis and podium performances, not what has been done historically."

Drake said the governing body had not set a medal target for the cycling team in Rio, apart from that it would aim to support Team GB's aim to at least equal its overall medal tally achieved at London 2012.

"It would be really nice after Rio for people to say 'we didn't think you could do that again', that would be a pretty special place to be," he said.

"We are part of the overall ambition to be the first nation who has hosted a Games to do equally as well or even better at the next Games, which is a massive challenge, but we are really up for that."

Other targets for the four years to 2017 are mainly based around participation.

A target of increasing once-a-week participation by 125,000 has been set, as well as making significant progress in British Cycling's aim to address the gender gap in cycling by getting one million more women cycling by 2020.

New president Bob Howden, who was elected at the weekend, is targeting increasing the body's membership from around 80,000 to 140,000. Changes have also been announced which should see the first women elected to British Cycling's board.

In the future, three of the 10 board members will be appointed as independent directors rather than elected, with the aim of having two or three female board members by 2017.

Sports minister Helen Grant welcomed the announcement.

She said: "This ambitious four-year plan shows that British Cycling has no intention of standing still. I welcome the focus on increased participation, closing the gender gap by getting more women riding bikes and continued elite success.

"I also applaud the much-needed governance changes that will mean that it can have a more representative board. This will provide opportunities for talented women to help shape cycling's future in this country from the top of the organisation."